LePatner, a Blackstone executive, served on the boards of the Abraham Joshua Heschel School and UJA-Federation of New York
courtesy/UJA-Federation of NY
Wesley LePatner speaks at the UJA-Federation of New York's annual Wall Street Dinner in December 2023.
Add JewishInsider on GoogleWesley LePatner, a Blackstone executive who was involved with Jewish communal organizations in New York City, was killed in the Monday shooting at the firm’s Midtown headquarters, the company confirmed on Tuesday.
LePatner was the global head of Core+ Real Estate at Blackstone and CEO of Blackstone Real Estate Income Trust, according to Blackstone’s website. A Yale graduate, she joined the company in 2014 after more than a decade at Goldman Sachs.
She served on the board of trustees at the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, a pluralistic Jewish day school in New York, and she joined the board of directors at UJA-Federation of New York earlier this month.
“We are devastated by the tragic loss of Wesley LePatner, a beloved member of UJA’s community and a member of our board of directors, who was killed in yesterday’s mass shooting in Midtown,” the federation said in a statement.
“Wesley was extraordinary in every way — personally, professionally, and philanthropically,” the organization said. “In the wake of Oct. 7, Wesley led a solidarity mission with UJA to Israel, demonstrating her enduring commitment in Israel’s moment of heartache. She lived with courage and conviction, instilling in her two children a deep love for Judaism and the Jewish people.”
In 2023, LePatner was awarded the Alan C. Greenberg Young Leadership Award at UJA’s 2023 annual Wall Street dinner. In a speech, she outlined her involvement with the organization, dating back nearly two decades.
“I first attended the UJA Wall Street dinner as a young analyst in 2004, where I am pretty certain I sat in one of the last tables at the back of the room,” LePatner said at the event, which took place two months after the Oct. 7 attacks. “Never in my wildest imagination could I have believed that I would be up on this stage two decades later. UJA has many super-powers, but its most important in my view is its power to create a sense of community and belonging, and that ability to create a sense of community and belonging matters now more than ever.”
LePatner also sat on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Yale University Library Council and Nareit, a real estate organization.
The shooting also claimed a second Jewish victim, Julia Hyman. A Cornell graduate, Hyman worked for Rudin Management in the Midtown skyscraper.
Ofir Akunis, consul general of Israel in New York, called the murder of LePatner and Hyman — as well as NYPD Officer Didarul Islam — “horrific and senseless” at the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit in Washington on Tuesday. “In this difficult moment, Israel stands in solidarity with New Yorkers and all Americans,” Akunis said.
The shift has been attributed to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam among easily distracted students
Grace Yoon/Anadolu via Getty Images
Pro-Palestinian students at UCLA campus set up encampment in support of Gaza and protest the Israeli attacks in Los Angeles, California, United States on May 01, 2024.
For a brief moment, it looked like 2024 all over again: Tents were erected at Yale University’s central plaza on Tuesday night, with anti-Israel activists hoping to loudly protest the visit of far-right Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir to campus. Videos of students in keffiyehs, shouting protest slogans, started to spread online on Tuesday night.
But then something unexpected happened. University administrators showed up, threatening disciplinary action, and the protesters were told to leave — or face consequences. So they left. The new encampment didn’t last a couple hours, let alone overnight. The next day, Yale announced that it had revoked its recognition of Yalies4Palestine, the student group that organized the protest. (On Wednesday night, a large protest occurred outside the off-campus building where Ben-Gvir was speaking.)
Meanwhile, at Cornell University, President Michael Kotlikoff announced on Wednesday that he had canceled an upcoming campus performance by R&B singer Kehlani because of her history of anti-Israel social media posts. He wrote in an email to Cornell affiliates that he had heard from many people who were “angry, hurt and confused” that the school’s annual spring music festival “would feature a performer who has espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos and on social media.”
The quick decisions from administrators at Yale and Cornell to shut down anti-Israel activity reflect something of a vibe shift on American campuses. One year ago, anti-Israel encampments were, for a few weeks, de rigueur on campus quads across the nation. University leaders seemed paralyzed, unsure of how to handle protests that in many cases explicitly excluded Jewish or Zionist students and at times became violent. That’s a markedly different environment from what’s happening at those same schools so far this spring.
“In general, protest activity is way down this year as compared to last year,” Hillel International CEO Adam Lehman told Jewish Insider.
There is no single reason that protests have subsided. Jewish students, campus Jewish leaders and professionals at Jewish advocacy organizations attribute the change to a mix of factors: stricter consequences from university leaders, fear of running afoul of President Donald Trump’s pledge to deport pro-Hamas foreign students and the issue generally losing steam and cachet among easily distracted students.
Last spring, an encampment at The George Washington University was only dismantled after the university faced threats from Congress. Now, no such protest is taking place — which Daniel Schwartz, a Jewish history professor, said was likely due in part to the “sense that the university was going to be responding much more fiercely to anything resembling what happened last year.”
“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.
Michael Simon, the executive director at Northwestern Hillel, came into the school year with a “big question mark” of how the school’s new policies, which provide strict guidance for student protests and the type of behavior allowed at them, would be applied. “I’m going to say it with a real hedging: at least up until now, I would say we’ve seen the lower end of what I would have expected,” he said of campus anti-Israel protests.
Many major universities like Northwestern spent last summer honing their campus codes of conduct and their regulations for student protests, making clear at the start of the school year that similar actions would not be tolerated again. In February, for instance, Barnard College expelled two students who loudly disrupted an Israeli history class at Columbia,.
“For the most part, the enforcement of rules, the understanding of what the rules are, what you can do, what you can’t do, requiring people to get permits for protests, has really calmed things down [from] the sort of violence that we saw last year,” said Jordan Acker, a member of the Board of Regents of the University of Michigan, who has faced antisemitic vandalism and targeted, personal protests from Michigan students.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has pressured top universities to crack down on antisemitic activity. The president’s threats to revoke federal funding if universities don’t get antisemitism under control has drawn pushback — Harvard is suing the Trump administration over its decision to withhold $2.2 billion in federal funds from the school — but it has also led universities to take action to address the problem.
Sharon Nazarian, an adjunct professor at UCLA and the vice chair of the Anti-Defamation League’s board of directors, said there is “no question” that “the national atmosphere of fear among university administrators for castigation and targeting by the [Trump] administration is also present” at UCLA and other University of California campuses.
“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.”
Rule-breaking student activists also face a heightened risk of law enforcement action. A dozen anti-Israel student protesters were charged with felonies this month for vandalizing the Stanford University president’s office last June. On Wednesday, local, state and federal law enforcement officials in Michigan raided the homes of three people connected to anti-Israel protests at the University of Michigan. Protesters’ extreme tactics have scared off some would-be allies.
“I think some of the most activist students went too far at the end of last year with the takeover of the president’s office and a lot of pretty intense graffiti in important places on campus,” said Rabbi Jessica Kirschner, the executive director of Hillel at Stanford. “I think a lot of other students looked at that and said, ‘Oh, this is perhaps not where we want to be.’”
Students’ priorities shift each year, and other issues beyond Israel are also vying for their attention. Trump’s policies targeting foreign students are drawing ire from students at liberal universities, many of which have large populations of international students.
“My sense is that being anti-Israel is not as much of the popular thing anymore,” Evan Cohen, a senior at the University of Michigan, said at a Wednesday webinar hosted by Hillel International for Jewish high school seniors. “On my campus, there are other hot topic issues. There might be more focus on what’s happening with U.S. domestic politics.”
But the lack of protests does not mean that campus life has returned to normal for Jewish students, many of whom still fear — and face — opprobrium for their pro-Israel views.
“It’s easy to avoid the protests but if you are an Israeli student or a Jewish student perceived to be a Zionist, you should expect to be discriminated against in social spaces at the university,” Rabbi Jason Rubenstein, executive director of Harvard Hillel, told JI. “That is the most powerful way students are impacted by all of this.”
Ken Marcus, founder and chairman of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, which since Oct. 7 has represented dozens of Jewish students in Title VI civil rights cases against their universities, said that campus-related lawsuits are only faintly slowing down this semester.
“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.”
“Some campuses have been less intense than during last year’s historically awful period, but others have been bad enough,” Marcus told JI. “I believe that the federal crackdown, coupled with the impact of lawsuits and Title VI cases, has had a favorable impact at many campuses, but the problems have hardly gone away.”
Or Yahalom, a senior at Northwestern University who was born in Israel, recently attended a dinner with Northwestern President Michael Schill, who has faced criticism from Jewish Northwestern affiliates — including several members of its antisemitism advisory committee — for what they saw as the administration’s failure to adequately address antisemitism.
“A lot of the staff and the administration think that, ‘OK, since there’s no protest outside, all the Jewish students must feel OK, and let’s put all this stuff that happened in the spring behind us.’ It’s really not the case,” said Yahalom. “That doesn’t mean that it’s all better for students. Jewish students are increasingly afraid to speak openly about their identity or connection to Israel, except in private, safe Jewish spaces.”
Even without massive encampments, disruptive anti-Israel protests and campus actions have not gone away entirely, though they have been more infrequent this academic year. A Northwestern academic building housing the school’s Holocaust center was vandalized with “DEATH TO ISRAEL” graffiti last week. The office of Joseph Pelzman, an economist at The George Washington University who authored a plan calling for the U.S. to relocate Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and redevelop the enclave, was vandalized in February. The Georgetown University Student Government Association is slated to hold a campus-wide referendum on university divestment from companies and academic institutions with ties to Israel at the end of the month. Smaller-scale protests continue at Columbia, with students chaining themselves to the Manhattan university’s main gate this week to protest the ICE detention of Mohsen Mahdawi and Mahmoud Khalil, two foreign students who had led protests last year.
Leaders of the University of Michigan’s anti-Israel coalition held a sham trial for the university president and Board of Regents members in the middle of the Diag, the main campus quad, this week. The event took place without issue, and the activists left when it ended.
“I wouldn’t want to say that it’s perfect,” said Acker, the Board of Regents member. “But it’s certainly much better than a year ago.”
The school year isn’t over. Some students at Columbia are planning to erect another encampment this month, NBC News reported on Wednesday.
But they’ll be doing so at an institution with new leadership, weeks after Columbia reached an agreement with the Trump administration, where the Ivy League university pledged to take stronger action against antisemitism to avoid a massive funding cut. The pressure on Columbia to crack down on any encampment will be massive.
Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via AP Images
Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) seen removing his colored hood from Harvard University as a sign of protest against their policies concerning the ongoing Israel-Palestinian war during the commencement ceremony for 2024 Yeshiva University graduating class, at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center's Louse Armstrong Stadium, Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, Queens, NY, May 29, 2024.
Good Thursday morning.
In today’s Daily Kickoff we report on Israel’s move to seize the Philadelphi Corridor, investigate the increasingly hostile environment Jewish therapists are facing after Oct. 7, and cover Sen. John Fetterman’s renunciation of Harvard at the Yeshiva University commencement yesterday. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Sen. Gary Peters, Virginia State Sen. John McGuire and new Yale President Maurie McInnis.
The Israeli army has taken full control of the Philadelphi Corridor, the strategic pathway that runs along Gaza’s southern border with Egypt, it announced yesterday evening.
In a press conference, IDF Spokesman Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said the route had served as an “oxygen pipeline” for Hamas to smuggle weapons into the Strip. He also said that the Iranian-backed terror group had exploited the corridor’s proximity to Egypt to store its weapons, including rocket launch sites. IDF troops operating in the area in recent weeks discovered dozens of Hamas’ launch sites used as recently as last week to fire projectiles into Israel and at least 20 tunnels, as well as tunnel shafts, located a few feet from the Egyptian border, Hagari explained.
IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi carried out an operational assessment along the corridor on Wednesday, telling troops that the military operation in Rafah, which sits adjacent to the border, was essential to “dismantle the Rafah Brigade.”
Among the tunnel shafts discovered in the area of Rafah in recent days, the army said, was a mile-long tunnel not far from the border crossing into Egypt. The tunnel, which was destroyed by combat and engineering units, contained dozens of anti-tank missiles and a large quantity of weapons.
Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) and the Misgav Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy, told Jewish Insider’s Ruth Marks Eglash that controlling the corridor weakened Hamas militarily and economically, both above and below ground.
“The infrastructure that exists beneath the corridor of active smuggling tunnels is used by Hamas for smuggling weapons, munitions, money, people and explosives into Gaza,” Michael said. “By disconnecting them from these tunnels, by dismantling them and destroying them, Hamas will have difficulty restocking.”
The Rafah border crossing also sits along the corridor and was used by Hamas as a source of income, Michael explained. “Hamas received a lot of money from controlling the Rafah crossing, they took customs and taxes and they also used the crossing as another smuggling platform,” he said.
“Disconnecting Hamas from the tunnels and the crossing weakens them dramatically militarily and economically, and also vis-à-vis the population,” he continued. “Hamas leaders are sitting in their tunnels and understand they are close to losing their sovereignty over the Gaza Strip and that might make them more willing to make concessions to reach a deal over releasing the hostages.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said during a briefing with reporters on Wednesday that the IDF had briefed the administration on its plans for Rafah, including “moving along that corridor and out of the city proper to put pressure on Hamas in the city. He said that Israel’s control of the 8.6-mile buffer zone along the border was consistent with the “limited” ground operation President Joe Biden’s team had already been briefed on.
“I can’t confirm whether they seized the corridor or not, but I can tell you that their movements along the corridor did not come as a surprise to us and was in keeping with what we understood their plan to be — to go after Hamas in a targeted, limited way, not a concentrated way,” Kirby told reporters.
U.S. Deputy Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Woodtold reporters yesterday that a new U.N. resolution proposed by Algeria to stop Israel’s operation in Rafah “is not going to be helpful.” The draft resolution calls for the opening of all border crossings and demands an immediate cease-fire and the release of all the hostages. Wood said that “another resolution is not necessarily going to change anything on the ground.”
While the movesteers clear of U.S. red lines, it could exacerbate tensions between Israel and Egypt, which is performing a delicate act as a mediator in the war, and has charged that increasing Israeli troops in the border area would be a breach of the peace treaty between the two countries.
An understanding must be reached between Israel and Egypt to prevent Hamas from regaining control of the area in the future and a sophisticated barrier, similar to that which exists between Israel and Gaza preventing the digging of more tunnels, must be erected, Michael said.
bad therapy
‘Opposite of inclusive’: A look inside the increasingly hostile environment for Jewish therapists
When someone posted in a private Facebook group for Chicago therapists in March, asking whether anyone would be willing to work with a Zionist client, several Jewish therapists quickly responded, saying they would be happy to be connected to this person. What happened next sparked fear and outrage among Jewish therapists in Chicago and across the country, and illuminated the atmosphere of intimidation and harassment faced by many Jews in the mental health world who won’t disavow Zionism. Those who replied soon found themselves added to a list of supposedly Zionist therapists that was shared in another local group as a resource, so that other professionals could avoid working with them. The only trait shared by the 26 therapists on the list is that they are Jewish, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.
No compassion: The anti-Zionist blacklist is the most extreme example of an anti-Israel wave that has swept the mental health field since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks and the resulting war in Gaza, which has seen the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians. More than a dozen Jewish therapists from across the country who spoke to JI described a profession ostensibly rooted in compassion, understanding and sensitivity that has too often dropped those values when it comes to Jewish and Israeli providers and clients.
Crisis mode: “We all worried that it could get this bad, but I don’t think any of us were actually expecting it to happen,” said Halina Brooke, a licensed professional counselor in Phoenix. Four years ago, she created an organization called the Jewish Therapist Collective to build community among Jewish professionals and raise the alarm about an undercurrent of antisemitism in the field. “Once Oct. 7 hit, we’ve all been in crisis mode since literally that morning, and the stories that have come in from colleagues and about their clients have been horrifying.”
Read JI’s full investigation into antisemitism in the mental health profession here.
Bonus: The Illinois body that licenses therapists has filed a formal complaint against Heba Ibrahim Joudeh, the author of the Zionist blacklist, alleging that the creation of the list violates state anti-discrimination laws as well as professional codes of ethics and standards of practice, according to a copy of the complaint obtained by JI. The Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation “prays” that Ibrahim Joudeh has her counseling license “revoked, suspended or otherwise disciplined.” A preliminary hearing on the case is scheduled for June 17.
unholy alliance
Sen. Peters slams terror-linked conference Rep. Tlaib addressed: ‘There is no place for violent rhetoric or advocacy of violence’
Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) distanced himself from Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-MI) appearance at the People’s Conference for Palestine, where pro-terror messages were celebrated and an activist with ties to a group designated by the U.S. as a foreign terrorist organization was welcomed. Peters’ office told Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs in a statement on Wednesday that Michigan’s soon-to-be senior senator “understands how personal the issues around the war between Israel and Hamas are for Michiganders and believes that individuals have the right to gather and advocate for their personal beliefs. However, he believes that there is no place for violent rhetoric or advocacy of violence in these discussions.”
Additional concerns: “As Chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Senator Peters is also concerned that foreign adversaries, like the Chinese and Russian governments, have and will continue to try to exploit divisions within U.S. domestic politics to sow chaos, something our nation’s intelligence officials have warned about. He urges Michiganders to be attentive to such potential interventions by foreign actors and organizations,” the statement concluded.
Avoiding comment: JI reached out to every Democratic member of Michigan’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), for comment on Tlaib’s appearance at the conference. Only Peters and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) responded, and the latter used her statement to praise President Joe Biden’s record on Israel and Jewish issues.
Conference content: The conference was organized by The People’s Forum, a far-left advocacy group funded largely by Neville Roy Singham, a businessman with ties to the Chinese Communist Party and a long history of donating to Marxist and socialist causes. Wisam Rafeedie, an activist with ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which is designated in the U.S. as a terrorist organization, was a guest at the event. Sana’ Daqqah, the widow of Walid Daqqah, the PFLP terrorist who was lionized in the Palestinian community for dying in an Israeli prison, was the keynote speaker. Attendees took part in chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,”, and “We want justice, you say how? End the siege on Gaza now,” in between speeches and discussions on “Confronting Zionism in Higher Education” and “Zionism and U.S. Imperialism.”
Read the full story here.
feting fetterman
Fetterman renounces Harvard in Yeshiva University commencement address
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) renounced his association with Harvard University over its “inability to stand up for the Jewish community” during his Yeshiva University commencement address on Wednesday, removing the crimson hood representing his alma mater while onstage. Fetterman made the gesture early in his address, which culminated in him receiving the Presidential Medallion, the private Orthodox university’s highest honor, for his advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people. He joked that he didn’t deserve to be in the same company as previous recipients of the award, describing himself as “just a senator with a big mouth that happens to be committed to standing with Israel,”Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.
Symbolic gesture: The Pennsylvania senator, who has emerged since Oct. 7 as one of Israel’s strongest allies in his party, said he had been “reflecting” on his “last graduation, and that was literally a quarter century ago. I was graduating from Harvard University. Today, I have been profoundly disappointed with Harvard’s inability to stand up for the Jewish community after Oct. 7. Personally, I do not fundamentally believe that it is right for me to wear this today,” Fetterman said while pointing to his hood, which he then removed from around his neck. The move sparked audible gasps and subsequent cheers from the crowd.
Staunch support: Fetterman, who graduated from the Harvard Kennedy School in 1999 with a master’s degree in public policy, vowed to remain a staunch supporter of Israel and fight for the release of the hostages, pointing to a memento given to him by a hostage family member. “Of course, we cannot ignore the somber context of today. In fact, on my wrist I’m wearing the wristband from the Nova music festival. It was given to me by a family member of someone that was taken hostage. If you look at it, it reads Oct. 7, 2023. It’s a constant reminder of the horrors of that day,” Fetterman said. “The Jewish community everywhere deserves our support and I promise you will always have mine. And I will not stop speaking out until every last hostage is brought back home.”
Read the full story here.
old dominion race
Rep. Bob Good faces primary threat from Trump-backed challenger John McGuire
Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), the House Freedom Caucus chair who has frequently voted against U.S. funding for Israel since Oct. 7 and backed a series of candidates opposing foreign aid across the country, is fighting for his political life in Virginia’s June 18 primary election, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Good was already facing a tough primary campaign against state Sen. John McGuire, but his odds of winning the nomination tumbled further after former President Donald Trump endorsed McGuire on Tuesday.
In the race: McGuire, a former Navy SEAL, told JI that Good’s backing of DeSantis was a major factor in his candidacy. He said he picked up widespread anti-Good sentiment in his state Senate district during his 2023 campaign. McGuire framed Good as a “divisive” drain on Republicans’ unity and effectiveness in Virginia and nationally, both through his support for unseating McCarthy and his involvement in primaries nationwide. Allies of McCarthy and other outside groups have spent over $4 million on TV ads tagging Good a “backstabber” and “MAGA traitor.”
Speaker troubles: McGuire highlighted that the weekslong speakership vacancy coincided with the Oct. 7 attack on Israel and the beginning of the war in Gaza. “In our time of need for our greatest ally, we couldn’t help [them] because we didn’t have a speaker,” McGuire said. “That right there is enough for me to run against him.”
Pro-Israel backing: McGuire called Good “not reliable with regard to Israel.” Good has said he voted against Israel aid over concerns about federal spending and the national debt, as well as provisions in the legislation that provided humanitarian aid for Palestinians. Good has maintained that he’s supportive of Israel. The Republican Jewish Coalition endorsed McGuire and hosted him at a recent leadership meeting in Washington, D.C. The state senator said he would have voted for supplemental Israel aid.
campus beat
New Yale President Maurie McInnis received high marks for handling of protests at Stony Brook
As Maurie McInnis prepares to take the helm at Yale University, Jewish leaders on Long Island and at Stony Brook University, where the art historian has been president since 2020, praised her for avidly defending free speech while also protecting Jewish students amid the anti-Israel campus protests that have roiled the New York school. At Yale, after a spring semester gripped by protests and encampments, the executive director of the school’s Slifka Center for Jewish Life, Uriel Cohen, expressed hope that when McInnis takes over the New Haven campus in July, replacing outgoing President Peter Salovey, the “campus climate [will return] to one in which mutual responsibility and respect are once again hallmarks of the Yale community,” he told eJewish Philanthropy’s Haley Cohen, reporting for Jewish Insider.
Encampment approach: During her tenure at Stony Brook, a SUNY public university in Suffolk County, McInnis “handled the encampments very well,” Mindy Perlmutter, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council Long Island, told JI. When encampments sprung up in the spring — and included antisemitic activity such as inhibiting the ability of Hillel to host its annual Jewish American Heritage Month celebration — McInnis said that anti-Israel demonstrations that comply with school policy will be permitted to continue. Ultimately, she shut down the encampments on May 2 after 22 Stony Brook students, two faculty members and five others were arrested for violating various laws.
Balancing act: Stony Brook Hillel’s executive director, Jessica Lemons, said that McInnis, who earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale in the 1990s and will be the university’s 24th president — and first woman in the post — “will leave behind big shoes.” Lemons added, “Since October, our campus has seen dozens of protests, anti-Israel events and tables, incidents of doxxing, harassment and intimidation of Jewish students, and much of what other campuses around the country are seeing. It has never been our expectation that our university president would be able to eradicate antisemitism, but rather that she and her administration would do their best to support students on campus, abide by rules set forth by both the first amendment and Title VI, and create an excellent institution of higher learning. By our measure, I believe President McInnis has done that.”
Read the full story here.
Elsewhere: More than 300 people, including 60 faculty members and several major donors have signed a letter calling on the University of California, Berkeley to cancel the deal outgoing Chancellor Carol Christ made with anti-Israel protesters.
community concerns
VA-10 candidates voice varying views on Gaza war, U.S. support in Jewish community events
Speaking at a pair of forums with Jewish community groups on Wednesday, candidates running in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District expressed a range of views on the U.S.-Israel relationship and domestic antisemitism, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.
Disagreements between allies: Del. Dan Helmer, speaking at an online forum hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said, “I believe in most cases that the Biden administration has done well by supporting the U.S.-Israel relationship. Where I have disagreements, it’s where we have allowed disagreements between allies to potentially become openings for enemies.” He said he “believe[s] strongly in continued aid, and that the best way to ensure the release of hostages is “to continue maximum pressure on Hamas to ensure that they understand that until they let the hostages go, Israel will continue its fight.”
Supporting Biden: Former House of Delegates Speaker Eileen Filler-Corn said she’s been “really pleased with how President Biden has been so incredibly supportive of Israel, its right to self-determination, its right to defend itself in light of the atrocities” committed by Hamas. Filler-Corn laid out several goals going forward: continuing to support Israel, ensuring humanitarian aid, ending the war with a return of the hostages and beginning to consider who will control Gaza after Hamas is defeated.
Defeating Hamas: State Sen. Suhas Subramanyam reiterated views that he’s laid out in other recent events, supporting an “enduring defeat of Hamas,” humanitarian assistance and a two-state solution, emphasizing “Hamas can’t be one of the states.” He said he supports humanitarian assistance for Gaza as well as, broadly, funding for Israel, without offering specifics. Subramanyam added that he was particularly affected by the attack on Kibbutz Kfar Aza, which he visited in 2022, and with whose residents he had stayed in contact.
Worthy Reads
Jewish Pride at Columbia: Natan Sharansky writes in Tablet about the importance of the letter from 500 Columbia University Jewish students expressing pride in Israel and their Jewish faith: “The next year will likely be as tough for Jews on campus as this one. Of course, in democratic America there are many tools that can be used to fight antisemitism: going to court, encouraging hearings in Congress, using the press to unmask the dangerous actors who finance the new antisemitic waves, and so forth. But in order to defend your rights, you have to first define and claim them. Until America’s Jewish students publicly claim their right to their Jewish and Zionist identity, they will continue to fight at a disadvantage.” [Tablet]
Illiberal State of Mind: Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue argues in an address at the Re-CHARGING Reform Judaism conference on Wednesday that the West is jettisoning liberal values. “The West is increasingly hostile to Jewish identity. It is not only Israel. Judaism, itself, is under withering ideological assault, and hence the Jewish state is the focus and the target of this hostility. It was inevitable that the rise and spread of identity politics would place the Jew on the wrong side of virtue. Some of us have been warning for years that the abandonment of Western liberal values is always bad for Jews. When we forsake Martin Luther King’s understanding of liberalism, to judge people not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character; when we elevate feelings over facts, bias over evidence, group entitlement over individual merit, cancelation over debate: When we dismiss liberal values as rooted in white privilege, oppression, colonialism and racism, we have betrayed liberalism, and undermined the very foundations that made the West dominant and Western Jews secure. The passions unleashed by an illiberal state of mind threaten both the West and Western Jews. History teaches that once Jew-hatred becomes normative it portends social decay” [SWFS]
Around the Web
A Letter from the Ayatollah: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote an open letter to American college students, which he also tweeted out, in which he praised them for having “formed a branch of the Resistance Front” and advised them to study the Quran.
Notable Quotable: House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) responded to the Khamenei Twitter storm, saying: “When you’ve won the Ayatollah, you’ve lost America.”
Malley Update: Republican lawmakers uncovered evidence that Robert Malley, the Biden administration’s former Iran envoy, “downloaded sensitive and classified documents and may have shared them with individuals outside the US government to advance his diplomatic efforts,” according to Semafor.
City of Brotherly Love: At a Philadelphia campaign stop designed to win support from Black voters, President Joe Biden attacked former President Donald Trump for invoking “neo-Nazi, Third Reich terms.”
Calming Nerves: Democratic Majority For Israel (DMFI) is trying to reassure Democrats who are concerned that their continued support for Israel will be damaging at the polls, Axios reports.
Role for Musk?: Former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk have considered an advisory role for the X owner should Trump take back the White House in November, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
No-Show: The U.S. will boycott the U.N.’s ceremony on Thursday to commemorate the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to Reuters.
ICC Fallout: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told former Trump State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus on her radio show that he’s “surprised and disappointed” that the Biden administration said it would reject the congressional effort to rebuke the International Criminal Court.
Backing Starmer: U.S. Ambassador to the U.K. Jane Hartley lauded the U.K Labour party leader, and likely the next prime minister, Keir Starmer, for his approach to the Gaza war and his consistency with the Biden administration’s position.
Next on the Hot Seat: The presidents of Yale University and the University of Michigan were given notice by the House Committee on Education and the Workforce for upcoming probes into the handling of antisemitism at their universities.
Documents Ask: The House Oversight Committee requested documents from National Students for Justice in Palestine relating to its funding, communications about responses to the Oct. 7 attack, provision of support to terrorism and all documents and communications created or sent between Oct. 6 and Oct. 8.
Road Rage: A driver tried to run over students and a rabbi outside a Jewish school in Brooklyn yesterday as he allegedly yelled “I’m gonna kill all the Jews.”
Bad Look: The deputy political director for Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), a Senate candidate, attended a 2017 convention celebrating Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam.
Big Bucks Against Bowman: A national group arguing Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) is too radical to represent mainstream Black voters has joined the crush of critics spending big to keep the progressive from a third term, Politico‘s Playbook has learned. The National Black Empowerment Action Fund, founded by AIPAC veteran Darius Jones, plans to sink an initial half-million dollars into a NY-16 offensive that includes directly interacting with Black voters and mobilizing local officials. More spending is anticipated.
Calling Out Haley: Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) called former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley “disgusting” for writing “finish them” on an Israeli artillery shell to be shot at Hezbollah targets.
Weighing Words: Responding to comments from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) told Jewish Insider it’s “ignorant and abhorrent” to suggest that the Abraham Accords “either caused or justified Hamas’s barbaric attack on October 7.” He added, “my colleagues should all recognize this simple truth and measure their words and statements accordingly.”
Intercepted: The IDF said it intercepted a cruise missile “that approached Israel from the east,” this morning, reportedly from Iraq.
Car Ramming: Two Israeli soldiers were killed in a car-ramming attack perpetrated last night near the city of Nablus in the West Bank.
Lula’s Move: Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva withdrew his ambassador to Israel following months of hostility between the two countries over the Israel-Hamas war.
Meta Move: Meta removed from Facebook and Instagram hundreds of fake accounts linked to an Israeli tech firm that is suspected of having used AI-generated comments for pro-Israel messaging.
New PM: Former chief of the Netherlands’ intelligence and security service, Dick Schoof, has been named as the country’s next prime minister.
Pic of the Day
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and Shoshan Haran, who was kidnapped to Gaza along with her daughter, son-in-law and their two children, and was released after 50 days, pose during a reception celebrating Jewish Heritage Month yesterday at Gracie Mansion in New York. Haran’s son, Tal Shoham, is still in captivity in Gaza.
Birthdays
Literary critic, essayist and novelist, Daphne Miriam Merkin turns 70…
Santa Monica, Calif.-based historian of Sephardic and Crypto-Jewish studies, Dolores Sloan turns 94… Real estate developer and former chair of UJA-Federation of NY, Larry A. Silverstein turns 93… Partner in the NYC law firm of Mintz & Gold, Ira Lee “Ike” Sorkin turns 81… Board member of the Collier County chapter of the Florida ACLU and the Naples Florida Council on World Affairs, Maureen McCully “Mo” Winograd… Cape Town native, she is the owner and chef at Los Angeles-based Catering by Brenda, Brenda Walt turns 73… Former professional tennis player, he competed in 9 Wimbledons and 13 US Opens, now the varsity tennis coach at Gilman School in Baltimore, Steve “Lightning” Krulevitz turns 73… Former chief rabbi of France, Gilles Uriel Bernheim turns 72… Medical director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee’s Ethiopia spine and heart project, Dr. Richard Michael Hodes turns 71… Encino, Calif.-based business attorney, Andrew W. Hyman… Israeli physicist and philosopher, Avshalom Cyrus Elitzur turns 67… Former member of Congress for 16 years, since leaving Congress he has opened a bookstore and written two novels, Steve Israel turns 66… Former science editor for BBC News and author of six books, David Shukman turns 66… Founder of Krav Maga Global with 1,500 instructors in 60 countries, Eyal Yanilov turns 65… Editorial writer at The New York Times, Michelle Cottle… Film, stage and television actress, she sang the national anthem at Super Bowl XLIX in 2015, Idina Menzel turns 53… Writer, filmmaker, playwright and DJ, known by his pen name Ithamar Ben-Canaan, Itamar Handelman Smith turns 48… Member of Knesset who served as Israel’s minister of agriculture in the prior government, Oded Forer turns 47… Director of engagement and program at NYC’s Congregation Rodeph Sholom, Scott Hertz… Deputy assistant to President Biden until 2023, now chief of staff for Senator Brian Schatz, Reema Dodin… Tel Avivian Alina T. Katz… Israeli author, her debut novel has been published in more than 20 languages around the world, Shani Boianjiu turns 37… Rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer, known professionally as Hebro, Raphael Ohr Chaim Fulcher turns 37… Counsel at Gilead Sciences, Ashley Bender Spirn… Deputy chief of staff for U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Miryam Esther Lipper… Senior writer for CNN, Eric Levenson… Challah baker, social entrepreneur, professor and manager of Howard Properties, Jason Friend…
McInnis defended students’ freedom of speech, but cracked down on protesters when laws were broken
John Lamparski/Getty Images
President Maurie McInnis attends 25th annual Stars Of Stony Brook Gala at Cipriani 42nd Street on April 29, 2024 in New York City.
As Maurie McInnis prepares to take the helm at Yale University, Jewish leaders on Long Island and at Stony Brook University, where the art historian has been president since 2020, praised her for avidly defending free speech while also protecting Jewish students amid the anti-Israel campus protests that have roiled the New York school.
At Yale, after a spring semester gripped by protests and encampments, the executive director of the school’s Slifka Center for Jewish Life, Uriel Cohen, expressed hope that when McInnis takes over the New Haven campus in July, replacing outgoing President Peter Salovey, the “campus climate [will return] to one in which mutual responsibility and respect are once again hallmarks of the Yale community,” he told Jewish Insider.
During her tenure at Stony Brook, a SUNY public university in Suffolk County, McInnis “handled the encampments very well,” Mindy Perlmutter, executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council Long Island told JI.
When encampments sprung up in the spring — and included antisemitic activity such as inhibiting the ability of Hillel to host its annual Jewish American Heritage Month celebration — McInnis said that anti-Israel demonstrations that comply with school policy will be permitted to continue. Ultimately, she shut down the encampments on May 2 after 22 Stony Brook students, two faculty members and five others were arrested for violating various laws.
Stony Brook Hillel’s executive director, Jessica Lemons, said that McInnis, who earned master’s and doctoral degrees from Yale in the 1990s and will be the university’s 24th president — and first woman in the post — “will leave behind big shoes.”
“Since October, our campus has seen dozens of protests, anti-Israel events and tables, incidents of doxxing, harassment and intimidation of Jewish students, and much of what other campuses around the country are seeing,” Lemons said.
“It has never been our expectation that our university president would be able to eradicate antisemitism, but rather that she and her administration would do their best to support students on campus, abide by rules set forth by both the first amendment and Title VI, and create an excellent institution of higher learning. By our measure, I believe President McInnis has done that,” Lemons continued.
Lemons noted that McInnis had to make “a number of tough decisions — some of which have made her unpopular with both sides of the issue — in an effort to serve as many students as possible and ensure the safety and sanctity of our campus.”
In addition to shutting down encampments, those decisions include an Oct. 10 statement condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and a statement on Oct. 31 condemning the subsequent rise of antisemitism.
On May 13, the Stony Brook Faculty Senate narrowly defeated a motion to censure McInnis for her handling of the arrests, by a vote of 55-51. The Faculty Senate also voted to demand the university drop charges for those arrested during the protests, but McInnis defended her response.
Rabbi Adam Stein, who leads Stony Brook Chabad, said that “the Jewish community found comfort that McInnis did not excuse [antisemitism], as opposed to on other campuses where it was excused and encouraged.”
“She defended freedom of speech and freedom of assembly but when all that translated to lawlessness, she didn’t bargain with demonstrators and meet their demands, she just had them arrested,” Stein said.
Imani Chung, a rising senior who is active in Stony Brook’s Israel on Campus Coalition chapter, echoed that McInnis “did well with the encampments in particular.”
“She asked them to leave multiple times before the arrests,” Chung said, adding that she and her friends were spat on by the anti-Israel demonstrators.
Under the leadership of McInnis, Stony Brook secured a $500 million donation from Jim Simons’ Simons Foundation (the second-largest gift to a public university in U.S. history), as well as a $700 million bid to lead the New York Climate Exchange campus on Governors Island.
Lemons said, “I have been enormously satisfied with her and her team’s work to allocate safety resources, work collaboratively and discuss opportunities for anti-bias education.”
‘We support folks’ free speech rights, but that includes the right to make an ass and an idiot of yourself,’ Sasse tells JI in conversation about campus protests
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) questions witnesses during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Capitol Hill on February 23, 2021 in Washington, D.C.
LOS ANGELES — Last week, while college administrators across the U.S. seemed paralyzed over how to respond to campus anti-Israel protesters, one school weighed in with a simple statement that served as a counterweight to the hemming and hawing of elite private universities. “The University of Florida is not a daycare, and we do not treat protesters like children,” a UF spokesperson said, declaring that students in an unauthorized encampment would face disciplinary action if they did not leave.
The statement achieved every PR flak’s dream: It went viral. Much of the positive attention heaped on the school landed on Ben Sasse, the former Nebraska senator and Yale-educated historian who has been the president of UF since early 2023. (A guest on Fox News on Monday praised Sasse and said, “Don’t be an ass, do it like Sasse.”)
“It isn’t that complicated to affirm free speech and free assembly, which are fundamental American rights and something that institutionally we’re committed to. But that doesn’t mean that the people who are the loudest are the ones who don’t have to obey the rules that everybody else does,” Sasse told Jewish Insider on Monday in a conversation at the Milken Institute Global Forum in Los Angeles.
For many universities, the seven months since the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel that sparked a war in the Middle East and touched off a wave of antisemitism in the U.S. have been marked by instability and indecision. Sasse took a stand early, condemning Hamas’ attack soon after Oct. 7 and raising his voice against antisemitism. But when it comes to the encampment on the Gainesville campus, Sasse said his response is only about enforcing rules and not going after students for having opinions with which he disagrees.
Campus rules allow tents on one occasion, said Sasse — tailgating during football season, when tents are allowed only in certain places and for a particular amount of time. “Why would a specific group of protesters get special license that nobody else gets?” he asked.
“We support folks’ free speech rights, but that includes the right to make an ass and an idiot of yourself, and a lot of the protesters say ridiculously, historically and geographically ignorant things,” Sasse said. There should be a role for universities and educators to play in responding to the content of what protesters are saying, he added, especially when some of their language echoes terrorist talking points.
“We don’t start by trying to prohibit speech, but we do want to ask fundamental questions about whether or not enough education is happening. The paraglider memes that are now replacing Che Guevara on T-shirts is so bizarre. Which paragliders are we talking about — the savages who raped teenage girls at a concert? That’s who you want to be the icon and the sort of shorthand for the movement you’re defending?” Sasse asked. “At the end of the day, there was an instigator that moved on 10/7, and it’s just amazing how quickly stupid and reductionistic so many of the protests have become.”
Sasse, who earned a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and a doctorate in history at Yale, declined to comment specifically on how those or other schools are handling similar issues. But he took an indirect swipe at universities like Columbia and the University of Southern California that have canceled commencement and other university events.
“I don’t make it my business to comment inside other institutions’ management decisions particularly, but I just don’t know who benefits by canceling these commencements. I don’t know who benefits by allowing people to disrupt the opportunity for students who have an exam tomorrow morning to be able to study in the library,” he said. “I know that we suffer as a community when people are spitting on police. I don’t know who benefits by vandalizing buildings. I just don’t understand the leadership decisions that are made in a lot of other places.”
He took the same approach regarding other universities, like Northwestern, that have sat down to negotiate with the protesters and even reach agreements with them. Sasse has no plans to do the same. “We just don’t think it’s prudent or wise or helpful to negotiate with the people who happen to scream the loudest,” Sasse explained.
UF has more Jewish students than any other university in America, according to data compiled by Hillel International — 6,500 Jewish undergrads and 2,900 Jewish graduate students. Sasse attended a massive seder at the university last month that drew more than 1,000 people.
“It is a special community. I think everybody feels safe. But I want the feelings to not be subjective, I want it to be because objectively, they are safe,” Sasse said. “Our Jewish Gators, as they call themselves, feel like it’s a pretty darn special place to be right now.”
In the Senate, Bernie Sanders has been resistant to holding a hearing spotlighting antisemitism at universities
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House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) speaks during a press conference at Columbia University on April 24, 2024 in New York City.
Congressional Republicans are vowing action to address antisemitism on college campuses nationwide, with House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) launching “a House-wide effort” this week to crack down on universities unable to control anti-Israel protests that on some occasions have grown violent.
Johnson said at a press conference on Tuesday that House Republicans would expand the ongoing efforts to tackle antisemitism beyond the House Education and Workforce Committee, which has investigations into six universities underway.
The chairs of the House Energy and Commerce; Oversight; Judiciary; Ways and Means; and Science, Space, and Technology Committees will separately investigate “the billions of federal taxpayer dollars that go to these universities,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said at the press conference.
“Antisemitism is a virus and because the administration and woke university presidents aren’t stepping in, we’re seeing it spread,” Johnson said. “We must act, and House Republicans will speak to this fateful moment with moral clarity. We really wish those in the White House would do the same. We will not allow antisemitism to thrive on campus and we will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus.”
“That’s why today we’re here to announce a House-wide effort to crack down on antisemitism on college campuses,” he continued. “Nearly every committee here has a role to play in these efforts to stop the madness that has ensued. The federal government plays a critical role in higher education, and we will use all the tools available to us to address this scourge.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), who chairs the Education and Workforce Committee, revealed that in addition to her ongoing probes, she will have the presidents of three other schools testify next month on their responses to protests and instances of antisemitism on their campuses. The presidents of the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Michigan; and Yale University will be brought in to testify before Foxx’s committee on May 23.
Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, noted that her panel “oversees agencies that dole out massive amounts of taxpayer funded research grants… We will be increasing our oversight of institutions that have received public funding and cracking down on those who are in violation of the Civil Rights Act.”
“Imagine being a Jewish American, knowing that part of your hard-earned paycheck is going to fund an antisemitic professor’s research, while they threaten students and actively indoctrinate and radicalize the next generation,” McMorris Rodgers said.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) said that his panel was reaching out to the State Department and Homeland Security Department to find out “how many students on a visa have engaged in the radical activity we’ve seen now day after day on college campuses.”
“The overriding question is real simple: Are individuals advocating for the destruction of our dearest and closest ally, the State of Israel, and engaged in this antisemitic behavior, is that a national security threat? We think it is,” Jordan said.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) hasn’t directly addressed the expanded GOP investigations, but is pushing for the House to consider a bipartisan antisemitism bill in response to the campus incidents.
Jeffries said Wednesday he has no current plans to visit colleges that have been plagued by unrest and anti-Israel encampments. He said he also hasn’t looked at proposals for cutting funding to colleges that are not cracking down on antisemitism, but slammed Republicans for pushing to cut funding to the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights, which investigates antisemitism accusations on campuses.
“Ultimately, it was House Democrats led by [Rep.] Rosa DeLauro [D-CT], that were able to restore the proposed extreme MAGA Republican cut that would have adversely impacted the ability of the Department of Education to combat antisemitism and all other forms of hatred on college campuses,” Jeffries said. “We don’t need rhetoric from some of my Republican colleagues, we need real action.”
The New York congressman expressed support for Columbia University and the New York Police Department’s response to anti-Israel demonstrators who broke into and took over an administrative building on campus.
“As far as I can tell, the efforts by the NYPD were thorough, professional, and they exercised a degree of calm in a very tense situation that should be commended,” he said during a press conference, adding that he did not see any incidents of excessive force.
The Democratic leader said that peaceful protest and civil disobedience are “an important part of the fabric of America” but that protests that threaten others or engage in antisemitism or other bigotry are unacceptable.
He said he had no comment on Democratic lawmakers who have visited the encampments at Columbia to offer support. He also declined to comment on remarks by Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) accusing some Jewish students of being “pro-genocide,” noting that he hadn’t spoken to Omar directly.
On the Senate side, where Democrats are in the majority, Republicans have been largely unified in calling for consequences for schools that cannot get their campuses under control, but otherwise lack the power to force any action.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) organized a press conference on Wednesday for a group of GOP senators to condemn the encampments, which he referred to as “Little Gazas.”
“These ‘Little Gazas’ are disgusting cesspools of antisemitic hate full of pro-Hamas sympathizers, fanatics, and freaks,” Cotton said. “President Biden needs to denounce Hamas’s campus sympathizers without equivocating about Israelis fighting a righteous war of survival.”
“The State Department needs to yank the visas of foreign students in these ‘Little Gazas’ and DHS needs to deport them,” he added. “The Justice Department should investigate the funding sources behind these ‘Little Gazas,’ and the Department of Education needs to withhold funding for colleges that won’t protect the civil rights of their Jewish students.”
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the No. 3 Senate Republican, similarly called for revoking federal support for universities that fail to uphold civil rights laws.
“We have laws in this country to protect against violence, to protect students. Students have a right to be protected. Jewish students, all students on campus, from harassment, from discrimination,” Barrasso said at the weekly leadership press conference. “If not, those colleges should lose their federal funding.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) delivered two floor speeches on the matter within two days. His Tuesday speech likened Columbia protesters to ‘student Nazis of Weimar Germany’ in a call to restore order on the university’s campus, while his Wednesday remarks urged the Biden administration to not focus “on virtue-signaling and political theater to appease the leftist agitators of their base.”
While Republicans have generally been more vocal about their concerns on the matter, there have been some bipartisan calls for action in the upper chamber.
Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) have asked Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) to hold a hearing on antisemitism on college campuses in his capacity as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), the top Republican on the committee, has requested the same.
Asked by JI in the Capitol on Wednesday about organizing a hearing about antisemitism on college campuses, Sanders replied, “Well, the issue of bigotry on campus is something that we are concerned about,” before abruptly entering a senators-only elevator.
Cassidy told JI in November that Sanders had declined to call a hearing on campus antisemitism. Sanders delivered a Senate floor speech on Wednesday largely expressing support for anti-Israel protests on college campuses and rejecting many of the accusations of antisemitism leveled at anti-Israel demonstrators.
Sanders’s office did not respond to JI’s subsequent request for comment on the matter, nor did a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
The campus feminist group apparently has not mentioned the sexual violence committed by Hamas on Oct. 7
Wikimedia Commons
The Yale University campus.
Jewish leaders at Yale University denounced an upcoming conference being hosted by Yale Women’s Center for its “exclusion of Jewish women’s voices and its libelous portrayal of Israel and Israelis.” The conference is dedicating its annual event on the New Haven, Conn., campus to the theme of “Pinkwashing and Feminism(s) in Palestine,” the group announced on Thursday.
“To the extent the Center is organizing this event, it betrays its obligations to Yale’s Jewish and Israeli women in particular, and to its mission,” Uriel Cohen, executive director of the Joseph Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, and the center’s rabbi, Jason Rubenstein, told Jewish Insider in a joint statement.
The event is slated for April 5-7 and is co-sponsored by Yale Faculty for Justice in Palestine. It is also sponsored by academic departments — American studies and gender studies — and the Center for Study of Race, Indigeneity and Transnational Migration. It will feature a number of discussions that, based on their titles, accuse Israel of committing war crimes in its current conflict against Hamas. These include “Gendered, Racialized, and Sexualized Torture by the Israeli Military in Gaza” and “Pinkwashing Genocide.”
The keynote address will be delivered by Sa’ed Atshan, an associate professor of peace and conflict studies and anthropology at Swarthmore College, who has participated in multiple National Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) conferences and is a proponent of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement. He said in 2014 at SJP’s conference, “We all know Israel is an apartheid state and should be boycotted.”
Kira Berman, president of Yale Friends of Israel, told JI that Yale Women’s Center has not released any statement regarding the sexual violence committed by Hamas on Oct. 7, despite her prodding — and even in light of a U.N. report, released this week, which found “clear and convincing” evidence of Hamas’ sexual violence in Israel.
Berman, a junior, has reached out to the feminist group twice — “first by email, and then by Instagram direct message. And they didn’t respond,” she said. The Yale Women’s Center is “an undergraduate-run umbrella organization for groups on Yale’s campus and beyond that deal with issues of gender and sexuality,” according to the conference website.
Cohen and Rubenstein said they “are profoundly concerned by the conference’s exclusion of Jewish women’s voices and its libelous portrayal of Israel and Israelis.”
They continued, “We believe that the Yale Women’s Center should stand with Jewish women, not join the many women’s rights organizations that have excluded Israeli women, and the violence against them, from the circle of solidarity since Oct. 7… The protection of free speech, even ugly and hateful speech, does not give Yale’s organizations or departments license to support a one-sided approach that demonizes Israelis and erases Israeli women.”
A spokesperson for Yale University did not respond to JI’s request for comment about the conference.
In December, Yale Women’s Center co-sponsored an on-campus event featuring Palestinian journalist Ameera Harouda, called “Motherhood, Journalism, and the Gaza Genocide.”
Elite universities are increasingly turning to task forces to address campus antisemitism. But questions remain over the efficacy and mandate of such groups
JOSEPH PREZIOSO/AFP via Getty Images
People walk through Harvard Yard at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts on December 12, 2023.
In the aftermath of a surge in antisemitism that erupted following the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attacks in Israel, top universities including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Pennsylvania and Northwestern announced the creation of new bodies tasked with studying antisemitism on campus and identifying how to address it. Their impending work is framed with urgency, and the bodies are generally discussed using language about the importance of inclusivity on campus.
But nearly five months after the environment for Jewish students on these campuses began to rapidly deteriorate, questions remain over the efficacy and mandate of such groups. They will also face the thorny issue of campus free speech as they delve into questions about what, exactly, constitutes antisemitism on campus.
The question over the credibility of these antisemitism task forces was underscored this week at Harvard, following the resignation of business school professor Raffaella Sadun, the co-chair of the presidential task force, reportedly because she felt university leaders weren’t willing to act on the committee’s recommendations.
“They’ve utterly failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students. It’s shameful,” a Jewish faculty member at Harvard told Jewish Insider. They requested anonymity to speak candidly about interactions with students and administrators in recent months. The professor has seen numerous Israeli students kicked out of WhatsApp groups unrelated to politics because they are Israeli. The professor also described widespread opposition, among many students, to topics having to do with Israel — and a corresponding reluctance to act from administrators, who fear pushback from far-left students.
“If you’re an administrator, and you care about your own personal well-being, and you want to keep Harvard out of the news or off social media, you basically try not to engage with these people in a way that will provoke them,” the professor said. “In the end this backfired on Harvard, because their failure to take care of Jewish students contributed to the accusations of institutional antisemitism, the lawsuit, the congressional investigation.”
“I think if the mandate is not clear, if there’s not enough resources, if the council doesn’t have committees and jobs, it’s just going to be window dressing,” said Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network. “It’s not going to be able to do the work that needs to be done.”
Harvard announced the creation of an antisemitism task force in January, which immediately faced criticism due to comments made by its other co-chair, historian Derek Penslar, suggesting that antisemitism is not a major problem at Harvard. The body’s full membership has now been announced, but the scope and timeline of its work remains unclear.
Interim Harvard President Alan Garber said in a Monday email that he expects the work of Harvard’s antisemitism task force to “take several months to complete,” but he asked the co-chairs “to send recommendations to the deans and me on a rolling basis.” It is not clear if the university will provide updates along the way; or if Harvard’s leadership will accept the task force’s recommendations.
At universities that already had antisemitism task forces prior to Oct. 7, those that achieved the most success generally have a budget to pursue actual work, a clear timeline for their work and strong buy-in from administrators, who must be willing to actually implement the groups’ recommendations, according to Miriam Elman, executive director of the Academic Engagement Network, which works to fight anti-Israel sentiment and antisemitism at U.S. universities.
It’s not yet clear if the newly created task forces — especially those at private universities, which don’t have the same obligation for transparency as public universities — will achieve the needed support from leaders.
“I think if the mandate is not clear, if there’s not enough resources, if the council doesn’t have committees and jobs, it’s just going to be window dressing,” said Elman. “It’s not going to be able to do the work that needs to be done.”
At Columbia University, Shai Davidai, an assistant professor in the business school, said he doesn’t have confidence that a newly created antisemitism task force can succeed unless the faculty on the committee changes to include more Zionist and Israeli voices.
“Stanford is aware of exactly what is going on, and if they cared they would have done something over the last five months,” said Kevin Feigelis, a doctoral student in the Stanford physics department, who on Thursday testified at a House Education Committee roundtable with Jewish students. “The university places people on these committees in one of two ways: either it places people who they think are going to be most sympathetic to the university or they go straight to Hillel and ask them. These are both troubling.”
“At universities, if you want to make sure something doesn’t happen, you set up a task force,” Davidai continued. “The task force at Columbia has done absolutely nothing. They just talk.”
At Stanford University, an antisemitism task force created in the wake of Oct. 7 has, like Harvard’s, been mired in conversations and controversy over its membership. Faculty co-chair Ari Kelman, an associate professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and Religious Studies, had a record of downplaying the threat of campus antisemitism along with recent alliances with anti-Israel groups. He resigned, citing the controversy, and was replaced with Larry Diamond, a pro-Israel professor in Stanford’s political science department. Under its new leadership, the committee also expanded its name and scope in January to include anti-Israel bias.
Despite the updates, Kevin Feigelis, a doctoral student in the Stanford physics department, who on Thursday testified at a House Education Committee roundtable with Jewish students, said that “the task force has still accomplished nothing and it’s not clear that they have the power to accomplish anything.”
In January, Feigelis worked with the campus antisemitism task force to plan an on-campus forum meant to combat antisemitism. The symposium was disrupted by a pro-Palestinian protest that included threats to Jewish attendees.
The task force “was instituted just to appease people,” Feigelis said. “Stanford is aware of exactly what is going on, and if they cared they would have done something over the last five months. The university places people on these committees in one of two ways: either it places people who they think are going to be most sympathetic to the university or they go straight to Hillel and ask them. These are both troubling.”
Feigelis expressed belief that the task force could accomplish more if it consisted of lawyers and more Israeli faculty.
“If you really want to fix the problem, why conflate it with other issues that are going to prolong trying to find a solution to it?” Mike Teplitsky, a Northwestern alum and the president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern, said of the task force’s attempt to also focus on Islamophobia and other forms of hate. “I would call it a bureaucratic distraction from trying to fix the problem.”
“If [the administration cared] the committee would not be made of political scientists and a biologist… lawyers should be the ones staffing a committee that determines what constitutes antisemitism. Instead they picked people who have no idea what constitutes free speech or what the code of conduct actually is.”
He continued, “The task force is currently holding listening sessions, but it’s just not clear what will come of that.”
After Northwestern University announced in November that it would create an antisemitism task force, 163 faculty and staff members at the university wrote a letter to President Michael Schill saying they were “seriously dismayed and concerned” by the announcement, raising concerns that the task force’s work would challenge “rigorous, open debate.” Three of the signatories of that letter — including Jessica Winegar, a Middle Eastern studies professor and vocal proponent of boycotts of Israel — were then named to the task force, which will also focus on addressing Islamophobia.
“If you really want to fix the problem, why conflate it with other issues that are going to prolong trying to find a solution to it?” Mike Teplitsky, a Northwestern alum and the president of the Coalition Against Antisemitism at Northwestern, said of the task force’s attempt to also focus on Islamophobia and other forms of hate. “I would call it a bureaucratic distraction from trying to fix the problem.”
Mark Rotenberg, Hillel International’s vice president for university initiatives and the group’s general counsel, argued that antisemitism has proven to be so severe as to warrant its own mechanisms. The inclusion of Islamophobia “and other hateful behavior” in the group’s mandate would be like if a campus Title IX office, focused on gender-based inequality, was also required to focus on racism.
“Antiracism may be a very important thing, but merging it with the problem of violence in frat houses is not going to signal the women on that campus that they are really taking that problem seriously,” said Rotenberg, who works with administrators at campuses across the U.S. on antisemitism-related issues. “That’s our point about antisemitism.”
Lily Cohen, a Northwestern senior who is a member of the task force, came face to face with antisemitism on campus a year before the Oct. 7 attacks. After writing an op-ed in the campus newspaper decrying antisemitism and speaking out about her support for Zionism, she was called a terrorist and faced an onslaught of hate — including a large banner that was printed with her article, covered by “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in red paint.
“I think it comes from the top,” said Cohen, who noted that, after the op-ed incident, “no strong actions were taken to stand up for Jewish students or protect Jewish students, or even just express that that wasn’t OK. It fostered an environment where antisemitism is tolerated at Northwestern as long as it stays just subtle enough that you’re not saying Jews.”
Afterward, she met with university administrators to talk about what happened to her. “At the end of the day, listening is not enough,” she said. “I don’t think in any of the meetings I had with any administrators, that they actually referred to what happened to me as antisemitism. I think that that’s a huge problem here, is how easy it is to say, ‘We are not antisemitic, we’re just anti-Zionist,’ or ‘We don’t hate Jews, we just hate Zionists. We just hate Israel.’”
The group started meeting in January, and it was asked by the president to finish its work by June, which Cohen worries is not enough time, especially given its broad scope. Administrators at the school have not instilled much confidence in her in the past, but she is choosing to be hopeful.
“Being on the committee, I have to be optimistic that we’re going to do something and that the president will take our recommendations seriously, and will put them into action,” she said. “Because if not, what was it all for?”
Gabby Deutch is Jewish Insider’s senior national correspondent; Haley Cohen is eJewishPhilanthropy’s news reporter.